Chaos at Circuit City over nothing
By Mike Ferro
I had a chance to head over to my local Circuit City recently. What I saw was something straight out of Black Friday. It was chaos as people were rushing to grab merchandise as if their lives depended on it- all for nothing.
I truly am sad to see Circuit City go away as I have many fond memories of going there while growing up with my father. I am sure many are also disappointed, especially the 30,000 employees that will become unemployed shortly. The closure doesn’t really hit you until you try to go to Circuit City’s Web site to do a quick price comparison to find a closure notice instead of the homepage.
As I was heading towards the store I noticed pandemonium inside rivaling that of Black Friday. Curious as to how great the deals were, I quickly went inside to look around. However, once inside I noticed that most of the sales were not that significant. I would say that most of the sales were a small percentage off the original price tag.
Not only were the discounts minimal, the purchases were final due to the liquidation. Usually with liquidation sales, the discounts start off quite minimal but build up overtime to move the entire inventory in the most efficient manner. However, the problem arises when all of the good products are gone by the time the deals become hot.
It really does boil down to the convenience factor, many of the products at Circuit City can be purchased cheaper or at an equivalent price online. If there is a product you are interested in and it sells for around the same price or a little cheaper online, it still might be worth it to pick it up at Circuit City while the store has it in stock.
Although I should advise readers to use discretion, as most consumers tend to suffer from impulse buying when the words “liquidation” and “sale” are in the same sentence. It is important to remember that all sales are final, so make sure that you actually need it before taking the plunge on that $2000 LCD TV.
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on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 1:59 am
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TheLiquidators are counting the gullible nature of non tech savvy public. They will go out of their way to promote the “appearance” of great deals that aren’t really there. Sure there WILL be some great deals later on, but they will only be on a much picked over inventory.